Tuesday, July 31, 2012

1. Mr Sun - Bright starts - As mentioned here, Lulu & Mr Sun have been best of friends since that blessed day I attached him to the handle of her car capsule.

2. Bonds Onesie - Lulu would live in these if it were up to me & if I didn't have to suffer the 'wow, still in her Pjs?' question. They have buttons along the crotch for easy nappy change, the buttons don't gape so you never see her skin through them, the kimono style offers extra chest protection and they have mitts that pull over her hands so she doesn't scratch herself.

3. Play mat - Just like Mr Sun, the play mat entertains Lulu for hours (when 20 mins to myself felt like hours). It's been fun watching her progress from looking, to grabbing, to trying to eat parts of the play mat.

4. Mam Anti Colic Bottles - Lulu spits up a lot and these bottles have drastically reduced the amount of spit up. Plus they can fully be taken apart so they air out properly. I WISH I had discovered these a lot earlier.

5. Pure Baby Sleep Sack - As soon as it started getting chilly Lulu would wake up in the early hours of the morning as she moved herself out of the blankets. The sleepy sack saved us.

Monday, July 30, 2012

1. Lawn sale a few doors down Saturday morning was crazy! Taxidermy, vintage clothes, plastic models & even a vintage vibrator in box

2. Lulu's slippers freshly washed & drying by the fire

3. Sir Elton & Lulu napping Sunday afternoon

4. The Balfors folk courtyard session at the desert park

We managed to pack a lot into this weekend. A friend over for dinner Friday night. Nick worked Saturday morning while Lulu & I had morning tea with friends. We had housewarming drinks Saturday afternoon at ours which went way into the evening. Sunday Lulu & I had a lazy day while Nick competed in a mountain bike downhill competition and in the afternoon Lulu & I went with a friend to the folk courtyard session at the Desert Park. We also managed to sleep a lot. A good weekend in all. How was yours?

Saturday, July 28, 2012

The week ended much better than it began, with coffee with friends, a clean house & a family on the mend. This week on the web I have been loving:

This house as seen on Bleubird Vintage - how clean, how tidy, no clutter! It inspired our house tidy up.

Lush Emotional Brilliance - Play the game on the Lush website & get a colour 'reading'. A bit of fun & it turns out that all colours are part of their new cosmetics range. I ordered this lip colour and their skin brightener called feel younger. Thanks for the heads up on this one Diana, read her review of the range here.

Friday, July 27, 2012

I just want to give a little update on where I am at with exercise. While we were in Adelaide I managed zero exercise, despite my excercise clothes taking up precious room in my suitcase, which really proves that you should never pack exercise clothes when you go on holidays as you will generally never use them.

Since we've been back I have started back at work. Last week I managed 1 day of the 30 Day Shred and 2.5 days running. I say .5 because I did half of week 2 C25K before arriving at the cafe. I had good intentions on doing the other half upon leaving the cafe but it never eventuated.

This week I have done three days in a row of 30 day shred. Congrats to me. Plus walking into town 2 days which is a 3km round trip. Not too bad.

I've lost 2kg in a month so something is working at last.

This photo has nothing at all to do with exercise but I thought the graffiti was funny.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

At my work it really doesn't matter what you wear to work & I've always secretly wanted to work in a 'proper office' where you wore mattered. So I've decided that I'm going to try & put a little effort into what I wear to work each day and unlike a 'proper office' I can have days where I just wear jeans & a t-shirt. Without further ado let's not talk about how I put zero effort into my hair & instead look at what I wore this week:

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Lulu got better over the weekend, but Sunday night I came down with a terrible stomach bug. The horrible kind where I was also so tired I couldn't get out of bed except to, well... I finally made it out of bed around 11 only to last about 10mins on the couch. Sitting up was just too tiring. It was lucky that Nick could stay home to look after Lulu, though he was pretty tired & the three of us ended up having a two hour sleep (I don't think you can call it a 'nap' when it goes past an hour?) in the middle of the day. Even more lucky for us was having Nick's mum take Lulu for a few hours while we had an early evening nap & a zone out in front of the telly.

Do you have any tips for looking after a baby when you're sick? Yesterday was hard. And I'm sure it doesn't get easier as they get older....

Saturday, July 21, 2012

I would love to have a few snappy links for you this week but to be honest I haven't made time this week to enjoy the web. I'm back at work now, just two days a week, Tuesday & Wednesday. Thursday was mother's group. Friday Lulu refused to sleep no matter what I did so we had to go for a run so she would sleep for half an hour in the pram. We had lunch with a friend and then Lulu slept in the pram (half hour max again) while I purchased a few ingredients for dinner.

In the afternoon she had an hour where she wouldn't stop coughing and threw up twice. It was incredibly scary & as I got ready to take her to the hospital she fell asleep on the bed. When she woke up (yep after only half an hour) I gave her some panadol and she was much better. Her grandma popped by for cuddles and we decided that, aside from the dry cough, it was mainly teething problems that were causing her trouble. Lulu had more food and was asleep by 7. Agh. She had a bit of a cough at 11pm and again at 2am. At 5:30am she woke and tried to cry but her voice was so croaky she couldn't. We gave her a little more panadol, she drank a whole bottle of food & fell asleep between us in our bed. She slept until 8am and has been a little better today.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

As you may or may not know, Lulu & I had trouble breastfeeding. It just didn't work for us so I ended up pumping for the first three months & supplementing the pump feeds with formula. I pumped every three hours round the clock and found that skipping pumps made me extra emotional, not to mention giving me mild mastitis, so the best thing was to stick to the schedule & pump for at least 20 minutes every three hours. I had worried about how on earth I'd ever stop pumping. Weaning from the breast pump seemed like it may be a little impossible.

Then, when Lulu was 9 weeks old, we went to Adelaide. I missed the lunch time pump & continued to miss the lunchtime pump each day I was there. Yes, I had to have a nap on the Friday afternoon to avoid being extra emotional, but I'd managed to miss the lunchtime pump for all three days I was in Adelaide.

When I returned home I continued a schedule of one middle of the night pump, one morning, one early afternoon, one late afternoon & one late evening pump. Wow at sounds like a lot but it was less than the every three hours schedule. Then I slowly cut back the length of time I pumped for, from twenty minutes, down to 17 minutes for one week, then down to 15 minutes. After this I pumped only when I felt full, rather than having a schedule. The pump sessions slowly decreased as I stopped producing milk. I ceased pumping just after Lulu was three months old.

My hot tip for weaning from the breast pump

My hot tip for you to remember when weaning from the breast pump is this: DO NOT go cold turkey! Do not just stop, whether you are pumping or breastfeeding, it is best to slowly decrease the pumping/feeding sessions. This reduces the chance of mastitis & the likelihood of depression.

Did you use a breast pump? Do you have any tips on weaning from the breast pump?

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Babies need a lot of stuff, which makes flying with them a bit of a challenge. Qantas does allow you to take three baby items (car carrier etc) but getting to the airport with a suitcase is hard enough so we hired everything we needed for this trip from Adelaide Baby Hire. You can hire for a day, week, fortnight or per month, it's all brand new and they will deliver it all to you at the airport & pick it up! We hired a car capsule (it's illegal in SA not to have one even if you are traveling in a taxi) and pram. We were also going to hire a porta-cot but Mum & Dad were given one.

The Babylove capsule we hired was great but I wouldn't recommend the Bablylove Snap n Go pram. It was so hard to use. Like trying to push a shopping trolley, the wheels would be going one way while you were trying to go the other. you can't steer with one hand. The brake was really hard to undo if you weren't wearing boots. I wore canvas shoes & happened to put the break on when going up one of those ramp escalators & then couldn't undo the break when we reached the top which almost ended up in a Today Tonight style lawsuit against the pram company & the shopping centre. The capsule fit into the pram but if you wanted to use the pram on it's own in the reclined position then you couldn't store anything in the basket and if you hung your nappy bag off the back then the whole thing over balances unless your 6kg baby is in the pram. No one wants to be lugging a nappy bag on your shoulder when you're wandering the streets. I think we've been spoiled with our MEGA pram the Valco Trimode Ex.

Anyway Adelaide Baby Hire is great & I would throughly recommend you hire from them if you happen to be visiting rAdelaide.

I have NOT been paid for this post, I just think they offer a great service.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Lake Eyre on the right as viewed from our great height

Friday was my first solo plane flight with baby Lulu. I was extremely nervous. Nick had been with us on all other flights and Lulu usually stretched out over his long legs. What if this time it was just us in one seat squished next to strangers? What if she decided that screechy cry was the only thing she wanted to do all flight?We were seated in the last row of the plane with just one other person in the row. An empty seat next to us gave us a little breathing room. Lulu was hungry as soon as we got on the plane despite drinking 150mls in the airport so I fed her & as we took off she fell asleep. For nearly an hour! Lucky me. I was able to read a fair bit of my novel on the iPad while she slept.When Lulu woke we moved to the row across from us as it was empty and Lulu stretched out and played for the rest of the flight. When I needed to go to the toilet, Lulu flirted with the cute male flight attendant who volunteered to hold her. No dramas on the descent. All in all a successful flight. Am sure my day will come....

Monday, July 16, 2012

This weekend we worked on projects at home. Painting our bedroom and setting up Lulu's room kept us fairly occupied all weekend (I will show before & after photos soon). Nick managed a bike ride, I a morning run and Sunday afternoon we had beers with friends at their new house before a lovely dinner at Nick's mum's. A good weekend all round. How was yours?

Saturday, July 14, 2012

A few of my favourite links from this week to go with your coffee:

Bri's PJ Uniform on Oh Joy - I'd love to wear the sassy pjs, but I have to admit that I'm mainly a comfort sleeper.

Genevieve Bell (Daughter of Australian Anthropologist Diane Bell, one of my heros, but that is a post for another time) on Women and Technology - Bell has undertaken research into how women use technology, finding that women use technology to multitask, use more social media and adapt technology to everyday life.

WTHR - I am obsessed with the weather & what temperature it is right now so this app is right up my alley plus it's pretty.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Lulu & I had a shopping day yesterday. We needed to return two items to Seed that didn't fit and we needed to pick up some cute things for Lulu's room from IKEA. How we ended up in the Myer change rooms at Marion Shopping Centre, I'll never know. Does this ever happen to you?

PS I am LOVING pram parks. Exactly the same as wheelchair parks, pram parks are close to the shopping centre door & pretty much almost free, even at IKEA in the school holidays. AMAZING. I am so glad I respected the pram park before I had a baby because I have had the best pram park karma this trip.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Vanilla & Lace has added baby girl clothes to her collection!! They are so sweet. The one above is my favourite. You can purchase it here and see the rest of the collection here. The dress above also comes in an adult size, handmade to order.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Chooks at my Aunt's Saturday morning, tiny ugg boots & vineyards.

Our second weekend in Adelaide has been cozy. My parents looked after Lulu while I went our Friday AND Saturday night. Two nights in a row! I am the luckiest girl in the world. Friday night I went shopping in the city with a friend & Saturday night the same friend and I went to the movies in the city. We saw A Royal Affair & had champagne & a cheese platter while we watched the movie. It's amazing what they'll let you do in the big city. The movie was great. We were so absorbed in the story that we didn't even notice the guy in front of us with the big head had left the cinema!

Lulu hasn't really settled down here. She's unsettled at night & she's still getting intensely cranky if she doesn't get her full morning and afternoon nap. Loud spaces are also causing trouble. She lost it at the winery, even though she'd just had an hour nap before we arrived. I took her for a walk amongst the vines and eventually she calmed down enough to come inside & have some food. In hindsight two weeks away from home, with a week away from her dad was probably a bit too much too soon. It's been great for her to be able to meet my family & spend time with her grandparents but it will be nice to be home at the end of the week.

Friday, July 6, 2012

The photo above is of Lulu stretching out & playing with my brother, her Uncle Craig.

The last few days in Adelaide we've spent either shopping or visiting or both. Yesterday arvo I visited a friend who has a 3 year old girl & a six month old boy. Between the over excited 3 year old who just loved Lulu & a increasingly cranky Lulu whose nap was cut short when we arrived, it was quite the afternoon. The baby boy was so good, sleeping on his mum the entire time, but with Lulu so cranky I left feeling like I hadn't really caught up with my friend at all. This afternoon I'm catching up with another friend, but this time Lulu is staying with her grandparents, which just might be for the best.

The photos make the time look easy but to be honest, Lulu was a bit out of her comfort zone & non-routine, routine. She has a lot of 'alone time' at home - time on the play mat, time lying on the couch next to me, etc. Over the weekend she spent a lot of time being held, and not much time 'alone'. After a while she became very frustrated with being held & with being in another new place. Meltdowns in the middle of restaurants became our norm over & as you jiggle her up while trying not to disturb the other patrons & down you tend to forget that a walk in the pram might be just what she needs to calm down. Tonight we're at Mum & Dad's & she was asleep in her travel cot before 7:30, the tired little mite.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

I've found a replacement, well not a replacement, but something to fill the void that finishing seven seasons* of Gilmore Girls has left, Hart of Dixie. Hart of Dixie is a cross between Gilmore Girls and Northern Exposure, except that our heroine is all alone with no best buddie/mum unlike Rory & Lorali. The show stars Rachel Bilson as a surgeon who gets told her bedside manner is no good & has to become a GP for a year. She moves from New York to Bluebell, Alabama. There she has to prove to the townsfolk that she is a good doctor and love interests ensue. Hart of Dixie has that same warm fuzzy feel as Gilmore Girls. I love it.

Thanks to Our City Lights for this post which reminded me to give Hart of Dixie a go. I love the Lumineers - too perfect.

*I cheated & started at Season 4 so I could go back to the very beginning but anyway...